Share on social media

It shapes as the greatest challenge of Wayne Bennett's coaching career.

Selecting a World All Stars team to take on the Indigenous All Stars at Suncorp Stadium on February 13 sounds like a scenario of which the dreams of NRL Fantasy players are made of but this year the master coach has some stricter criteria to adhere to.

Where Bennett's hand-picked squad of 20 this year consisted of 18 players aligned to either Australia or New Zealand, the Broncos mentor must now construct a team with a minimum of four Aussies and Kiwis along with four English representatives and six players of Pacific island heritage. The three captains of Australia, New Zealand and England are also automatic selections (who we took to be Cameron Smith, Simon Mannering and James Graham).

Bennett will have two discretionary picks to round out his squad and also has to squeeze in at least one representative – and no more than two – from each of the 16 NRL teams.

For the purposes of our exercise we just assumed that each player would be released by their respective clubs – a luxury that Bennett won't have – and set about carefully constructing our squads that met all criteria.